An address on secession. Delivered in South Carolina in the year 1851

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LOYAL PUB LS C ATtON SOC!

ETY, I

1 S63 BROADT^AY.

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1 J&'o, 77.

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AN ADDRESS

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DELIVERED IN SOUTH CAROLINA IN THE YEAR 1851,

BY FRANCIS LIEBER,

FRANCIS LIEBER,

President.

J. A. STEVENS, Jk.,

Secretary.

W. T. BLODGETT,
Ch. Executive Com.

IMOREIS KETCimM,

Treasurer.

r. A. ROOSEVELT,

Ch. Finance Com.

J a:\ies mckaye,

Ch. Publication Com.

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NEW YORK :

PUBLISHBD BY THE LoYAL PCBUCATION SOCIETT.
18G5

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A FOURTH OF JULY ADDRESS
SECESSIOIsT.

In tho year 1S50, after the admission of California a.^ a free state. pcce»-
aiou was ui-gftl by a strong party in South Carolina ; but when u conventior.
was held in Charleston, it was found that the so-called co-operationists— •
th'it is to say those who were in favor of secession, indeed, but only con-
jointly with other states — were in the majority. The Union-men of th ;
state, desirous of lioinjx, on tluir i)art, whatever might be in their i»owei-,
to strengthen th" Union feeling, resolved, in 1851, to celebrate, by a nias>-
nieeting at (ireenville. .S. C , tlie Fourth of July, a day already t!ien fre-
quently sj).)ken of with little tesi)ect. Many citizens were invited, cither
to be present, or '• to give their views in writing at length," should they
bo prevented from piirticijiating in the celebration. The author was
among the invited guests ; but, being on the jKjint of leaving Soutli Caro-
lina for .some months, he wrote the following address, which was read
and published in the pai)erd of the day, from one of which he now copies it.

FelloW-Citizens : Thl.s i.s iho Fourth of July! There
is a Iragnmce about the month of July, delightful and re-
freshing to every friend of freedom. It was on the sixth day
of this month that Leonidas and his martyr Land, faithful
*'^o the laics of their country," even unto death, sacriliced
themselves, not to obtain a victory — they knew that that
was beyond their reach — bat to do more — to leave to their
state and their country, and to every successive generation
of patriots, to the end of time, the memory of men that
could '• obey the law," and prepare themselves for a certain
death for their country, as for a j lyful wedding feast. It was
on the ninth day of this month, that the Swiss peasants dared
tc make a stand at Sempaeh, against Austria — then, as now,
the drag-chain to the chariot of advancing Europe — that
memorable day when Arnold Winkelried, seeing that his
comjtanions hesitated betore the firm rampart of lances level-
ed against them by the Austrian kni.;hts, cried out : "Friends,
I'll mike a lane for yuu ! Think uf my dear wife and chil-
(ir^-n ?" — '.^rasped, as he was a man of great stren;j:lh. a whole
bundle of the euemy'8 pikes, buried them in his breaot, and

made a breacli, so that over hira and the knights whom he
had dragged down with him, liis brethren coukl enter the
hostile ranks, and with them victory for Switzerland and
liberty ; and Arnold's carcass, mangk-d and trodden down,
became tlie corner-stone of the Helvetic Kepublic. It was
on the fourteenth day of this month that the French, awaken-
ed from a lethargy into which an infamous despotism had
drugged them, stormed and conf|uerecl that castle of tyranny,
the ominous key of which Lafayette sent to our Washing-
ton, who sacredly kept it to the last day of his life, so
that every visitor could sec it, as the choicest present ever
offered to him to whom we owe so much of our liberty
and of the existence of our great commonwealth. And it
was on this day that our foref ithers signed that Indei)end-
ence, which many of them sealed with their blood, and which
the others, not permitted to die for their cause, soon after
raised to a great historical reality, by the boldest conception
— by engrafting for the first time in the history of our kind,
a representative and complete political organism on a con-
federacy of states, nicely adjusted, yet with an expansive and
assimilative \atality.

These are solemn recollections. As the pious Christian
recounts the sacrifices and the victories of his church with
burning gratitude and renewed pledges to live worthy of
them, so does the fervent patriot remember these deeds with
rekindled affection, and resolutions not to prove unworthy of
such examples and unmindful of so great an inheritance, but
on the contrary, to do whatever in him lies to transmit the
talent he has received from his fathers, undiminished, and, if
God permits, increased, to his successors.

Yet there are those in this country who daringly pretend to
make light of the great boon received from our flithers — of
this, by far the greatest act of our history — of that act by
which we stand forth among the nations of the earth — the
Union. There have been patriots as devoted as ours — there
have been republics besides ours — there have been siircading
nations like ours — there have been bold adventurers pressing
on into distant reirions before ours — there have been confed-

eracies in antiquity and modern times bcsidt-s ours, — Imt
thcro lias never been a union of free states like ours, cemented
by a unittd representatiuu of the single states, and uf the
peo]»le at large, wovlu together into a true government like
ours ; k-aving st-parate what ought to be sejiarated, and yet
uniting the "whole by a broadcast and ecjual rejiresentation,
changing with the changing |)o])ulation, so that Ave cannot
fall into a dire Peloponnesian war, in which Athens and
►Sj)arta struggled for the leadership, that int«rnecinc Avar into
Avhich all other confeeleracies have lallen, and in Avhicli they
liave ])nried themselves under their own ruins, unless they
have slowly glided into submission to one Holland, or one
Austria, or one Berne. ]\IaMy federations, indeed, have had
to bear the larger })art of both the evils.

There are those Avho jtretend to make light of the Union ;
there are those Avho Avilfully shut their eyes to the many jjosi-
tive blessings she has bestowed ujion us, and avIio seem to
forget that the good which the Union, Avith her Su])reme
Court, or any other vast and lasting institution, bestoAvs
Upon men, consists as much in preA^enting evils as in shoAver-
ing benefits into our laps. There arc those A\'ho will not see
or hear Avhat is happening before our own eyes in other coun-
tries— in Germany, for instance — that living, yet bleeding,
ailing, writhing, humbled commentator on Disunion. Ah !
felloAv-citizens, you can but fear, and justly fear, that of dis-
union Avhich I ]inoic. With you the evils of disunion are
happily but matter of ajqirehension ; Avith me, unha])]iily,
matter of living knowledge. I am like a man Avho knows
the plague, because he has been in the East, Avhere he Avit-
ncssed its ravages ; you only knoAv it from description — and
easily may it be understood Avhy I shudder Avhen I hear jier-
sons speak of the i)lague Avith trifling flippancy, or courting
the ap])alling distemper to come and make its pleasant home
among us, as a SAveet blessing Avhieh Providence has ncA'cr
yet vouchsafed to us.

There are those A\'ho seem to imagine that the Union might
be broken up and a new confederacy be formed Avith the ease
and jirecision Avith Avhieh the glazier breaks his brittle sub-

stance along the line which his tiny diamond lias drawn —
forgetting that no great institution, and, least of all, a coun-
try, has ever broken up or can hreak up in peace, and with-
out a struggle commensurate to its own magnitude ; and
that when vehement passion dashes down a noble mirror, no
one can hope to gather a dozen well-framed looking-glasses
from the ground.

There are those even who think that the lines along which
our Union will split, are ready- marked like the grooved lines
on some soft substance, intended from the beginning to be
broken into parts for ultimate use.

There are those who speak of the remedy of secession — ^a
remedy — an amputation would be a remedy, indeed, to cure
a troublesome corn, or as cutting one's throat would remedy
a migraine.

There are those, even, it seems to me, who have first rashly
conceived of secession as a remedy, and now adhere to it as
the end and object to be attained, when they are shown that
it would not cure the evils complained of, but, on the con-
trary, would induce others, infinitely greater and infinitely
more numerous. They fall into the common eiTor of getting
so deeply interested in the means, that the object for the ob-
taining of which the means was first selected is forgotten.
But though the error be of daily occurrence, it is a fearful
one in this case, because the consequence would be appalling.
They almost remind us of those good people in Tuscany, who
had contracted so great a fondness for St. Romualdus, that
when the saint had concluded to remove from among them,
they resolved, in a grave town-meeting, to slay their patron
saint, so that they might have at least his bones, and wor-
ship them as sacred relics.

We have heard much of secession. It is still daily dinning
in our ears. What is secession ? Is it revolution, or is it a
lawful remedy to whicli a state is permitted to resort in right
of its own sovereignty ? Many persons — and there are some
of high authority in other matters among them — maintain
that even though it might not be expedient in the jn-esent
case, it cannot be denied that the right of seceding belongs

to every state. I have given all the attention, and applied
all the earnest study tluit I am capable of to this suljject ;
and everything — our history, th<' framing of our Constitution,
the C')rrespondence of the framers, thf conduct of our coun-
try, the actions of our states — all prove to my mind that
such is not the case. It has been often asserted that the
states are sovereign ; and they would not be so could they
not, among other things, witiidraw from the Union whenever
they think tit. Tiiis is purely begging the qiiestion. The
question is what sovereignty is, and what, in particular, it
means when the term is aj)plied to our contederated states.
No word is used in more difterent ap})licatiiins than this term
"sovereign ;" but in no sense, whatever width and breadth be
given to it in this or any other case, docs it mean absolute
and unlimited }»ower, if we speak of men. There is but one
absolute ruler — one true sovereign. Unlimited power is not
for men ; and the legal sage. Sir Edward Coke, went so far
as to declare, in the memorable debates on the petition of
rights, that "' sovereignty is no parliamentary word." This
is not the place where so subtle and comprehensive a subject
can be thoroughly discussed, but I niay be permitted to
touch upon a few points which may be examined here with-
out inconvenience.

What is right for one state, must needs be right for all
the others. As to South Carolina, we can just barely imag-
ine the possibility of her secession, owing to her situation near
the border of the sea. But what would she have said a few
years ago, or what indeed would she say now — I speak of South
Carolina, less the secessionists — if a state of the interior,
say Oiiio, were to vindicate the presumed right of secession,
and to declare that, being tired of a republican government,
she prefers to establish a monarchy with some prince, im-
ported, all dressed and legitimate, from that country where
princes grow in abundance, and whence Greece, Belgium, and
Portugal, have been furnished with ready-made royalties —
what would we say ? We would simply say, this cannot be
and nmst not be. In forming the Union we have each given
up Some attributes, to receive, in turn, advantages of the last

importance ; and we have in consequence so shaped and bal-
anced all our systems that no member can withdraw without
deranging and embarrassing all, and ultimately destroying
the whole.

But does not the Constitution say that every power not
granted in that instrument shall be reserved for each state ?
Assuredly it does. But this very provision is founded upon
the suj^position of the existence of two powers, the general
and the state governments. The Constitution is intended
to regulate the affairs between them ; secession, however,
annihilates one party — the general government — so far as
the seceding state is concerned. The supposition that the
Constitution itself contains the tacit acknowledgment of the
right of secession, would amount to an assumption that a
principle of self-destruction had been infused by its own
makers into the very instrument which constructs the gov-
ernment. It would amount to much the same provision
which was contained in the first democratic constitution of
France, namely, that if government acts against the law,
every citizen has the duty to take up arms against it. This
was, indeed, declaring Jacobinical democracy tempered by
revolution, as a writer has called Turkey a despotism tem-
pered by regicide.

And can we imagine that men so sagacious, so far-seeing,
on the one hand, and so thoroughly schooled by experience
on the other, as the framers of our Constitution were, have
just omitted, by some oversight, to speak on so important a
point ? One of the greatest jurists of Germany said to me
at Frankfort, when the Constituent Parliament was there
assembled, of which he was a member : " The more I study
your Constitution, the more I am amazed at the wise fore-
cast of its makers, and the manly forbearance which pre-
vented them from entering into any unnecessary details, so
easily embarrassing at a later period." They would not de-
serve this praise, or, in fact, our resjiect, had they been
guilty of a neglect such as has been supposed. Can we, in
our sober senses, imagine that they believed in the right of
secession, when they did not even stipulate a fixed time ne»

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cessary to give notice of a contemplated secession — knowing,
as they ilid, quite as \sv\\ as we do, that not even a common
treaty of defence or otleiiet — no, not even one of trade and
amity — is uvlt entered into \)y independent powers, without
6ti])uhiting the ])eri(id wliieh must eUipse between informing
tlie other parties of an intendeil withdrawal and the time
■when it actually can take place ; and when they knew j^er-
fectly Well that, unless such a provision is contained in
treaties, all international law interprets them as perpetual ;
when they knew tliat not even two merchants join in part-
nership without providing for the period necessary to give
notice of an intended dissolution of the house ? It seems to
me pre])Osterous to su])pose it. The absence of all mention
of secession must Le explained on the same ground on wliich
the omission of ])arricide in the first Roman penal laws was
exjtlained — no one thought of such a deed.

Those that so carefully drew up our Constitution cannot
be blamed for not having thought of this extravagance, be-
cause it had never been dreamt of in any confederacy, an-
cient, medieval, or modern. Never has there existed an ar-
chitect so presumptuous as to consider himself able to build
an arch equal to its purpose and use, yet each stone of which
should be so loose that it might be removed at any time,
leaving a sort of abstract arch, fit to support abstractions
only — as useful in reality as the famous knife without a
14ade, of which the handle was missing. Those that insist
on the right of secession from the Union, must necessarily
admit the correlative right of exjiulsion on the })art of the
Uiiion. Are they prepared for this ?

If tlio Constitution says nothing on secession ; if it cannot
be supposed to exist by imj)lication ; if we cannot deduce it
from the idea of sovereignty, it may be worth our while to
inquire into the common law of mankind on this subject.
The common law in this case is history.

Now, I have taken -the pains of examining all confed-
eracies of Avhich we have any knowledge. In none of the
many Greek confederacies did the right of secession exist, so
far as we can trace their fundamental princii»les. In some

rare cases an nnfaitliful member may have been expelled.
But in ilie most im])ortant of all these confederacies, and in
that which received the most complete organization,
resembling, in many points, our own — in the Acha3-
an League, there existed no right of secession,
and this is proved by the following case : — When
the Romans had obtained the supremacy over Hellas, and
Greece was little more than a province of Rome, the iEtolians
respectfully waited upon the Roman commissioner, Gallus,
to solicit permission to secede from tho league. He sent them
to the Senate, and the secessionists obtained at Rome the per-
mission to withdraw — no " leading case," I suppose, for
Americans. The Amphictyonic Council allowed of no seces-
sion. It was Pan-Hellenic, and never meant to be otherwise.
The medieval leagues of the Lombard cities, of the Swabian
cities, and of the Rhenish cities, permitted no spontaneous
withdrawal ; but the fortunes of the fiercest wars waged
against them by the nobility, would occasionally wrench off a
member and jiroduce disruptions. The great Hanseatic
League, which, by its powerful union of distant cities, became
one of the most efficient agents in civilizing Europe, and which,
as Mr. Huskisson stated in Parliament, carried trade and
manufacture into England, knew nothing of secession until
the year 1630, when the princes, greedy for the treasures of
her cities, had decreed her destruction, and forced many mem-
bers to secede. This is no leading case either.

The Swiss Confederacy, the Germanic Federation, knew
and know nothing of secession ; nor did the United States of
the Netherlands — so much studied by some of our framers,
and by Washington among them — admit the withdrawal of
any single state. The great " Utrecht Union" of 1577, was
/or ever ; yet the Netherlands formed a real confederacy.

All these confederacies consisted of a far looser web than
ours ; none had a federal government comjjarable to ours ;
yet they never contemplated such a right. And shoukl we do
so — we, with a firmer union, a better understanding of poli-
tics, a noliler consciousness of our mission as a nation, and
greater blessings at stake ? Should we, indeed, of all men

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that ever united into federations, treat our government, by
wliicli we ex -il all otht-r iiiiiti'd governments, as a sort of po-
litical }iienie to whieh tlie iuviti-d gut st may go and carry his
share of the viands or not, as he tliinks fit, or the humor mav
move him ? Are all the ri;:;hts on the side of the states —
that is, the individuals — and all the obligations, and obliga-
tions, only, on the side of the c<infederacv — that is, the
whulc ? This doctrine is the French thcoiy of excessive
individual right and iiersonal sovereignty ajijilicd to states,
and n.iught else.

I ask, will any one who desires secession for the sake of
bringing about a Southeni Cuufcderacy, honestly avtr that
lie would insist upon a provision in tlie new constitution se-
curing the full right of secession whenever it may be drsired
by any mend)cr of the expected confederacy ?

To s-eciU', then, requires revolution. Revolution f(»r what ?
To HMiii dy certain evils. And how are they to be remedied ?
It is a rule laid down among all the authorities of interna-
tional law antl ethics, that to be justitied in going to war it
is not sullieient that righ , be on our .vide. We must also
have a f lir j)rospect of success in our favor. This rule ap-
plies with far greater force to revolutions. The Jews who
rose against Vespasian had all the right, I dare say. on their
side ; but their undertaking was not a warrantable one for all
that. We, however, should we have sufficient right on our
side for jilunging into a revolution — for letting loose a civil
war ? Does the system against which we should rise contain
within i^s ovv-n bosom no })eaceful, lawful remedies ?

^^'e are often told that our forefathers plungt d into a revo-
lution, why should not \7e .'' I"]ven if ih'- two cases were com-
parable, which they are obviously not, I would ask, on the
other hand, Are v.'e to have a revolution every fifty years ?
Give me the Muscovite Czar rather than live under such a
government, if government it could be called. I am a good
swimmer, but I should not like to spend my lite in whirlpools.
And does the question of riglit or wrong, of truth and justice,
go fir nothing in revolutions ?

Nor would the probability of success be in our favor, since

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it is certain that secession cannot take place withont war, and
this war must end in one or the other of two ways. It must
either kindle a general conflagration, or we must suffer, sin-
gle-handed, the consequences of our rashness — hitter if we
succeed in lopping ourselves off from the trunk, Litter if we
cannot succeed. Unsuccessful revolutions are not only mis-
fortunes, they hecome stigmas. And what if the conflagration
becomes general ? Let us remember that it is a rule which
pervades all history, because it pervades every house, that the
enmity of contending parties is imj^lacable and venomous in
in the same degree as they have previously stood near each
other, or as nature intended the relation of good will to exist
between them. It is the secret of all civil and religious wars ;
it is the secret of divided families ; it is the explanation of
unrelenting hatred between those who once were bosom
friends. Our war would be the repetition of the Peloponne-
sian War, or of the German Thirty Years' War, with
still greater bitterness between the enemies, because it would
be far more unnatural. It would shed the dismal glare of
barbarism on the nineteenth century. Have they that long
for separation forgotten that England, at first behind Ger-
many, France, Italy, and Spain, rapidly outstripped all, be-
cause earlier united, without permitting the crown to absorb
the people's rights ? The separation of the South from the
North would speedily produce a manifold disrupture, and bring
us back to a heptarchy, which was no government of seven,
but a state of things where many worried all. If there be a
book which I would recommend, before all others, to read at
this juncture, that book is Thucydides. It reads as if it had
been written to make us iiaiisQ ; as if the orators introduced
there had spoken expressly for our benefit ; as if the falla-
cies of our days had all been used and exposed at that early
time ; and as if in that book a very mirror were held up for
our admonition. Or we may peruse the history of cumber-
ed, ailing Germany, deprived of unity, dignity, strength,
wealth, peace, and liberty, because her unfortunate princes
have pursued, with never-ceasing eagerness, what is called in
that conntTj 2:)articularis7n — that is, hostility of the parts to

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the whole of Germany, and after tlu' tloAvnrall of XajKileon
preferri'cl tlie salvutii'n of their jxtty soveniguiics, confer-
red u|)iin them by Napok-en, to the grandi ur, jieaeo, and
strength uf their common country. The history of Germany,
the hattlfliekl of Eurojx! fur these three centuries, will tell
you what idol wc should worship, wt-re we to toss our hles-
Bings to the winds, and were we to deprive mankind of the
j)roud example inviting to imitation.

I have already gone far beyond the proper limits of a com-
munication for the purpose for wiiieh the present one is in-
tended, and must abru[itly conclude where so much may yet
be said.

I will only add that I, for oik' dare not do aiivthin"- to-
ward tiie disiujjtion of tin; Union. Situated, as wc are, be-
tween Kuro]ie and Asia, on a fresh continent, I see the linger
of (ioil in it. I believe our destiny to be a high, a great, and
p. sohnin one, before which the discussions now agitating us
shrink into much smaller dimensions than they aj)pear if we
pay exclusive attention to them. I have come to this coun-
try, and jiledged a voluntary oath to be faithful to it, and I
will keej) this oath. This is my country from the choice of
manhood, and not by the chance of birth. In my position,
as a servant of the state, in a public institution of education,
I have imposed upon myself the duty of using my influence
with the young neither one way nor the other in this discus-
sion. I have scru]iulously and conscientiously adhered to it
in all my teaching anel intercourse. There is ne»t a man or a
youth that can gainsay this. But I am a man anel a citizen,
and as such I have a right, or the duty, as the case may be,
to speak my mind and my inmost convictions on solemn oc-
casions before my lellow-citizens, and I have thus not hesi-
tated to j)Ut down these remarks. Take them, gentlemen,
for what tla y may be worth. They are, at any rate, sincere
and fervent ; an J, whatever jiulgment others may j)ass upon
them, or whatever attacks may be levelled against them, no
one will be able to say that they can have been made to ])ro-
mote any individual advantagi s. God save the common-
wealth ! (ioelsave the commmon land.